On this West Virginia Morning, food pantries across the state cope as the coronavirus turns life upside down – we’ll explore regional food security in the Mountain State. We also bring you this week’s Mountain Stage Song of the Week.

As restrictions on daily activities tighten and confirmed cases of the coronavirus rise, many West Virginia food pantries say more people are coming to rely on their services.

Federal food resources are being expanded, but organizations on the ground say they’re struggling not only with increased need but also with how COVID-19 is changing day-to-day operations. The team at West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached out to food pantries across the state to see how they’re faring. Brittany Patterson brings us this report.

We had help producing that story from Emily Allen, Liz McCormick, Corey Knollinger and Roxy Todd. We also had help from J.J.N. Multimedia who produced a short film about Five Loaves and Two Fishes Food Bank in McDowell County.

In this time of crisis, we're reaching out to community leaders who are working on the frontlines to help their towns and regions. Glynis Board spoke with Danny Swan, executive director of the nonprofit Grow Ohio Valley – an organization based in the Northern Panhandle committed to promoting regional food security. Here's part of their conversation.

While some presume that John Denver's iconic song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" has been performed on Mountain Stage many times over the years, it has only made a scant few appearances on the show. For our song of the week, here’s the highly decorated bluegrass group Russell Moore & Third Time Out, who closed out their set by honoring an audience request for the classic tune.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from West Virginia University, Concord University, and Shepherd University.

Our Appalachia Health News project is made possible with support from CAMC and Marshall Health.

As restrictions on daily activities tighten and confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus continue to rise, across West Virginia many community-based food pantries report more people are using their services.

While federal food resources are being expanded during the pandemic, some organizations operating on the ground say they are grappling with how COVID-19 is changing day-to-day operations.

For the past two years, West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia team has been working on a folkways project that focuses on artisans and craftsmen within Appalachia.

For many of these people, their art or craft is their primary income, and a lot of them depend on social events, like concerts, farmers markets and craft fairs. In this new world of coronavirus and social distancing, that is proving difficult.

On this week’s episode of Inside Appalachia, we are taking a much-needed break from the news. We’ll explore ways we can continue to stay connected with each other, even when we’re self-isolating for health reasons.

On this West Virginia Morning, as detection of coronavirus expands throughout the state, other health challenges remain. We’ll check in with a health expert in the Eastern Panhandle, and we’ll also take a break from virus coverage and hear from kids corresponding between Wales and West Virginia.